New Orleans police have arrested a 70-year-old man on three counts of second-degree rape, tying him to unsolved sexual assaults from 1997, 2008, and 2013 through a DNA match that only surfaced after an unrelated gun arrest last year. Robert Hamilton was taken into custody on August 17, and the New Orleans Police Department detailed the case during a joint news conference with the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office Wednesday afternoon.
According to WDSU, both agencies announced the arrest jointly, underscoring how closely the police department's cold-case detectives and prosecutors worked to bring the charges. NOPD investigators say detectives first identified Hamilton as a suspect after he was arrested in 2025 on a firearm possession charge, a booking that required his DNA profile to be entered into the FBI's Combined DNA Index System, known as CODIS. That entry, per the department, yielded matches to three previously unsolved rapes spanning 16 years.
How a Gun Charge Cracked Three Cold Cases
CODIS cross-references forensic DNA profiles across local, state, and federal law enforcement databases, meaning a profile collected for one case can quietly link to evidence sitting untouched in another. In this instance, NOPD says that is exactly what happened: a routine firearm arrest generated the sample that connected Hamilton to rapes committed nearly three decades apart. NOPD Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick confirmed that Sex Crimes Cold Case detectives re-examined the old case files, collected additional confirmation DNA swabs, and verified that the evidence was still viable before Hamilton was taken into custody.
Investigators say all three alleged assaults followed a similar pattern. In each case, according to NOPD, victims met Hamilton in the French Quarter before he brought them to the Moon Walk promenade along the Mississippi Riverfront, a popular pedestrian walkway across from Jackson Square, where the assaults occurred. NOPD records also show Hamilton was previously convicted of rape in 1978, nearly two decades before the first of the three cold-case offenses now cited in his new charges. Police say they suspect Hamilton may be linked to additional assaults and are asking anyone who interacted with him prior to 2013 to contact Special Victims detectives.
What Hamilton Is Facing Under Louisiana Law
Hamilton faces three counts of second-degree rape under Louisiana Revised Statutes § 14:42.1, a felony that carries a mandatory sentence of 5 to 40 years at hard labor, without the possibility of parole, probation, or a suspended sentence, according to the Louisiana State Legislature. Each of the three counts carries its own independent sentencing exposure, meaning the charges could compound rather than run concurrently.
The case is being handled through the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Sexual Assault Kit Initiative Unit, a specialized team that prosecutes DNA-linked cold cases using an eight-person vertical prosecution model funded by federal Bureau of Justice Assistance grants, Hoodline previously reported after a 30-year sentence tied to a similar DNA-linked prosecution. Vertical prosecution keeps the same attorneys and victim advocates on a case from arrest through trial. Since the joint OPDA-NOPD SAKI task force was formed in October 2018, investigators and prosecutors have reopened hundreds of backlogged rape cases and charged dozens of DNA-linked defendants with assaults dating as far back as the 1970s, according to the Metropolitan Crime Commission, which has previously honored the task force for its cold-case work.
A Broader Push Against Backlogged Sex Crimes
The arrest lands amid a wider, multi-agency effort in the region to clear cold cases and track down unregistered offenders. A Metropolitan Crime Commission report released in July found that overall violent crime in New Orleans has dropped 70% compared to 2022 levels, with double-digit reductions in districts covering the 9th Ward and New Orleans East driving much of the citywide decline. Separately, between October 2025 and January 2026, a regional operation called Boo Dat 2025 resulted in 38 arrests, including 16 people apprehended on felony warrants for open sex-based offenses across Greater New Orleans, according to the U.S. Marshals Service, which noted the operation involved NOPD, federal marshals, and local sheriff departments.
It remains unclear whether the public appeal for information will surface additional victims, when a grand jury might formally indict Hamilton under La. R.S. 14:42.1, or how prosecutors plan to address the evidentiary challenges that often come with decades-old witness testimony. Hamilton's arrest follows other recent Special Victims cases in the city, including a man booked on rape, trafficking, and kidnapping charges earlier this month, and an ongoing search for a teen suspect in an attempted rape on Magazine Street reported in March.
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